Blissfully Caged
by no escape from reality
Summary: ...one look at her and my brain went all mushy and my flying reflexes were lost in the deep dark recesses of the liquefied gray matter between my ears.'


**Blissfully Caged**

"Lily? Is that you?" I almost dropped the bottle of shampoo that was in my hand when I heard that voice. There was no mistaking it. There was no doubt in my mind that Beverly Parker was standing beside me waiting for a response, most likely with her perfect eyebrows arched at me.

"Beverly!" I put the shampoo, complete with promises of enhanced volume and shine back on the metal shelf and gave her a hug. I felt a little odd, like I was going to break her in half. I could count the vertebrae in her back from a mile away. Surely she hadn't been that skinny the last time I saw her.

"You look great," I said, pulling away and smiling what I hoped was a charming smile. It seemed to frighten her so I stopped and settled on saying the first thing that came to my mind. "How's school going for you?"

"It'd be better if there were boys." I tried with all my might not to roll my eyes at her. I looked longingly down the isle where my mother and sister were arguing over which brand of hand soap to buy. I was getting very uncomfortable talking to Beverly.

"We need to get together some time, like we used to." I could have kicked myself until there was nothing left of me after I heard those words leave my mouth. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

"Of course! I'll call Angela and Marcie. They will be so excited to see you! You look so grown up now, and girly! Last time we saw you, you had a frog in your pocket." Beverly visibly shuddered. I inwardly laughed. Potter had planted the frog in my trunk, hoping to disgust me. I grew fond of the frog on the train ride home, though, and kept him up until the night he ran away and was, unfortunately, found flat as a pancake in the road the next day.

"That'll be great!" I hoped that I sounded more cheerful than terrified. They had changed a lot since I started going to Hogwarts, and I'm sure that I did too. The point is that we are no longer alike. At all.

They count calories and how many times a day a boy whistles at them. While I am flattered if a boy finds it fit to whistle in my direction, I by no means keep count. I also enjoy not thinking about what goes into my body. If I want to eat it, I don't analyze it, I open my mouth and chew.

They wear more make up than a five cent you know what, and I only own two shades of eye shadow. I wear them proudly.

On the way home, I contemplated my situation. How on earth was I going to get out of this one? I could fake my own death, but that would only work if I was moving to Canada, or some place far away that they don't know exists, never to return again.

Slowly, the realization dawned on me. I was screwed. Not even Merlin could get me out of this one.

After all the time that I spent unpacking my Hogwarts trunk the night before, I had no choice but to hastily shove everything back in and hide it somewhere. I tossed school robes and books that probably weighed three times what Beverly did into my trunk without paying much attention to how things were going in. I was just about to toss my owl in the trunk when I heard the knock on my window.

I looked down at my owl who glared back at me and flapped her wings impatiently. What on earth was I doing?

There was a knock on the window again. This time it was accompanied by a "Lily, hurry up and open the window." I set my owl down on the bed and opened the window. James Potter, in all of his glory, flew into my bedroom and landed with a hefty thump on my light pink carpet.

"Nice place you got here." I groaned. I didn't care if I hurt his feelings. He was, after all, James Potter.

"You have to go." I grabbed his arm and helped him to his feet. I guided him to the window and handed him his broom. "Now." I added when he just looked at me like I had grown a second head. No really, that's the way he looked when his imbecile of a friend "accidentally" gave me a second head.

"Are we interrupting something?" That voice was back, only it was accompanied by a matching set of snickers. Marcie and Angela. They worshiped Beverly like she was the high priestess of some odd religion that they followed.

"Girls!" I put a smile on my face and turned to face my worst nightmare. Well, one of my worst nightmares. "I was just showing Potter here the way out."

Marcie looked critical and Angela actually laughed. "Through the window?"

"He's a trained parachutist" Stupid. Why did I say these things around them? What was wrong with me?

"What is a parachutist?" Way to go, James. Ruin my only excuse. I shook my head. I'd have to explain it later.

I was trapped. I was trapped like a rat in a cage. Not a magical rat that could chew through the wires on the cage if he wanted to, either.

Three of the most terrifying sixteen year olds I had ever met blocked the door, and James Potter -- while he was not terrifying, he wasn't exactly comforting either-- blocked the window.

I stood in the middle of my bedroom. I looked the girls over. It was hard to believe that I used to be friends with them. They all went off to their college prep boarding school, while I went off to learn how to enlarge heads and make people hiccup.

Don't get me wrong, I love Hogwarts. I was simply illustrating the difference between us. I looked from Beverly and her loyal band of twits to James who looked almost as horrified as I imagine I did at the moment. He stood staring like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming car. He held his broom in his hand and his light blue robes flowed around from the freezing cold wind coming in my open window.

They eyed him up and decided that he was harmless, even if he was about to jump out a window with a broom while wearing what the probably supposed was some new fashion. Either that or they thought he was wearing his mother's house coat. You never can tell with those three.

I decided that James was my safest bet. He, after all, had the broom and could get us out if we played our cards right. "James, these are my friends." I swear that I didn't mean for it to sound as forced as it came out. "Beverly, Marcie, and Angela." He smiled and ran a hand through his hair. I fought the urge to smack his wrist and tell him no.

"Hi," He put the broom down on the floor and looked at me questioningly. "Having a sleep over, Evans?"

I hadn't noticed the bags stuffed full of magazines and nail polish before. I reminded myself to kick him for bringing it to my attention. "Yes, apparently I am."

"How do you know Lily?" Beverly asked. I could tell that she was ready to jump Potter, and I wasn't sure he would fight her off too hard.

"We go to school together." He smiled charmingly. How on earth could he act that casual in a room with them? What was wrong with him? "We are in the same house."

Marcie looked scandalized. "You two get to live together?"

"No," I whipped around and narrowed my eyes at Potter. "He doesn't mean that kind of house."

They nodded as if they knew what I was talking about, and moved on to the next awkward subject.

"So, are you guys, like, dating?" That was Angela. She was the one woman gossip mill.

Potter beat me to it. Just as I opened my mouth to tell them that under no circumstances were he and I together, he ran his hand through that obnoxious hair of his and with a cocky grin said, "Yes we are."

---

Why did I get the feeling that Lily Evans was going to kill me?

You could say that it's my own fault, but really, it's all Padfoot. He was the one who had the brainiac idea to go over and give Evans a Christmas present. I wanted to wait until we went back to school, but no.

Why do I bother listening to him?

Anyway. Earlier today, I performed a very impressive tracking charm in order to locate one Lily Evans. I very much would have liked to use the front door. I'm not much for flying up to a girl's bedroom window. Especially not a girl who seems to have a warrant out for my head, but anyway, I digress.

Just as I was about to gracefully swoop to her doorstep, I noticed three girls approaching my targeted landing spot. I didn't have time to get high enough up that they wouldn't see me, so I darted around the house, all the while blessing my wonderful quidditch reflexes.

The only light on that side of the house caught my eye. I causally glanced in. There she was. My breath got shallow and I just stared. I couldn't help myself. She was throwing things into her trunk like there was no tomorrow.

Maybe she was planning to run away with me? Yeah right, Potter. In your dreams, well, I suppose, in my dreams.

I causally knocked on the window. She didn't notice, but I saw that she was about to shove an owl into her trunk. I knocked a little harder and said "Lily! Hurry up and open the window!"

That got her attention. She looked at her owl and got this incredibly adorable look of confusion on her face before she put it down and opened the window. The owl nearly collided with me when I flew into her room. I wish I could say that I was as graceful as a god, but, one look at her and my brain went all mushy and my flying reflexes were lost in the deep dark recesses of the liquefied gray matter between my ears.

She just stared at me. For half a second I thought maybe she was glad to see me. Ha.

"Nice place you got here." Really, it is nice. It's got a nice pink tone to it. Very girly. Which is good for a girl. I think.

That's when I realized that she was in fact not happy to see me. She groaned in frustration. Great, she probably thought that I was stalking her.

"You have to go." I couldn't help but notice my heart skip a beat or five when she grabbed my arm. As forceful as it may have been, it was like a nice tingly flow of electricity going through my body. She pushed me to the window and shoved my broom in my hand.

The door opened and three girls walked in. If only Padfoot could have seen them. That was my thought when she added "Now."

Just when I was going to figure out a way to tell her about the girls, one of them spoke up. "Are we interrupting something?" The other two were trying to muffle their laughter. They did miserable job at it though.

Lily turned on her heel to face the girls. I could have sworn that I saw her face drop a little when she realized the girls were in the room. Once more, all signs pointed to happy to see me.

"Girls!" I hope she didn't think that she sounded all happy to see them after their long separation. I mean, I don't know. I'm assuming it was long. You know what they say about assuming things though. "I was just showing Potter here the way out."

The girl in the middle, who, if she wasn't anorexic, would have been gorgeous, smirked at her. Lily hated it when people smirked. "Through the window?"

I stared at the back of her head, waiting for her to get us out of this situation. "He's a trained parachutist."

What? What was she talking about? I don't even know that that is! "What is a parachutist?"

She shook her head at me like I was an idiot. It's not my fault that my parents aren't Muggles.

She stood there and just looked between those girls and me. I think she inched a little closer to me. I could have been imagining it though. My fevered brain runs wild in the presence of Lily Evans.

"James, these are my friends." The way she said friends made me smile, but I thought better of actually doing it. I could tell she didn't like these people. She definitely did not consider them her friends. "Beverly, Marcie, and Angela."

So, Annie the anorexic, as I had mentally named her, was called Beverly. Huh.

I ruffled up my hair, forgetting about how much Lily doesn't like that. "Hi." I remembered how she felt about my hair the second that I saw her eyes. They were flashing at me like a fireworks show. Only, not happy fireworks, more like fireworks of doom.

I put my broom down, cautiously. "Having a sleep over, Evans?" She looked surprised to see each of the girls had a backpack that seemed to be ripping at the seams. If they could talk, which I could make them if I really wanted to because I'm just that good, they would be screaming "save me, save me!".

"Yes, apparently I am." Lily looked almost frightened at the thought of sleeping in the same room with them.

"How do you know Lily?" Beverly was practically undressing me with her eyes. It wouldn't have bothered me so much but her collar bone was staring at me and taunting me.

I smiled at her. "We go to school together. We're in the same house." I suppose I hadn't realized that not every school was coed, or that they didn't all have houses.

"You two get to live together?" Oh how I wish with every fiber of my being. Well, except the moral fiber. I've been told that I don't possess much of that, though.

"No!" if Lily's physical reflexes were as fast as her vocal ones, she'd be a better quidditch player than me. "He doesn't mean that kind of house." If looks could kill I would have been dead ten times over.

She stared at me for a few seconds until another girl spoke. "So, are you guys, like, dating?"

I beat her vocal reflex record. "Yes we are." I know that she will never buy it, but it was self defense. If I hadn't said that I was with Lily, those girls would have been all over me. I know that I'm good looking. People like me have to be careful in a situation like that.

I was in heaven. I was trapped in a room with Lily Evans by three muggles. She couldn't except me to just jump out the window and fly off into the night on my shooting star now could she?

Pure bliss…

---

I'm not quite sure what came upon me. I just started writing this during my lunch breaks instead of Galloping Meadows. Now that I've finished this, whatever it is, I'll be able to do Galloping Meadows again. Yay for that. Oh, yeah, I was lazy and I didn't edit this ( I usually edit my work three times over) so I'm really sorry about any really bad mistakes.


End file.
